A Slight Delay: Welcome to the cruiser life!

Contrary to our last post on leaving the dock within a few days of the last shake down cruise we are still at the Marina de Salinas! No worries though...we just had to adjust plans, as we will have to do plenty of times in the future living the full time cruiser life. Nothing is ever chiseled in stone when traveling on the high seas! Most importantly everything is weather dependent...everything! In our case it is check dependent though...we are waiting for a check in the mail...no kidding! I guess there are worse reasons to be delayed, so I will spare you the ranting and raving. The delay should take around 2-4 weeks (!), but we are making the best of it :)

Things happen for reasons...when we heard that we were stuck here for another few weeks tropical storm Sandy was forming in the Caribbean, making this a time of staying in the area anyways! So we went to the supermarket and did more provisioning, de-cluttered the salon and aft cabin, re-arranged the whole hanging closet in the aft cabin and turned it into a non-hanging closet where we can now store all sorts of equipment from wet/dry vac to electric sander and polisher to ice boxes to parts for our Walker Bay dinghy that turn it into a little sailing dinghy to spare outdoor solar lights used when at anchor...and so on! In order to keep track of things I labeled the shelves with blue tape and permanent marker, not pretty but effective and since the sliding door will stay closed 99% of the time...who cares? Ahhhh...at last we are getting organized :) Of course I should have posted pictures of the whole "schmier" right here...but...ehem...I think pictures of Sweetie One and Sweetie Two are more appropriate...after all it is us who did all the work (!)

All this work and no play? Not really, because when we were finished we sailed to Boca de Infierno again, where we had a great time! Whilst anchored there our new found cruiser friends Bob and Judy and their little dog Leo aboard SV Adastra, their Morgan 41 Classic sailboat came to visit for two days. We had such fun together exploring Cajo Caribe (where there is a hiking trail), snorkeling, and inviting each other for dinner on our boats!

When they sailed on to Coffin Island sweetie one and sweetie two had Boca de Infierno for themselves again...we love you Bob and Judy :)

It rained quite a bit, which gave us a good reason to test our rain catching system in action...it passed the test with flying colors!

Since the last post we made some improvements...purchased the proper length wooden dowel and inserted it to the outer edge...added corresponding snaps to the bimini top seam to accommodate the placement of the system on top of the sun shade, so that we don't have to take down the sun shade when it rains.

The latter is important: Keeping the sun shade in place when it rains keeps the rain out of the cockpit and it also helps holding the rain gutter nice and straight...we just feed the drain hose from the outside of the sun shade into the water tank hole! Not to mention that we don't have to snap and unsnap said sun shade all the time...

It really worked very well...so now we have proof that we can catch the rain and fill out water tanks "out there" :)

On our way back to Salinas the weather was just perfect for sailing...we enjoyed being under full sails and spend almost three hours tacking back and forth on the ocean...just like little kids having fun with a favorite toy...oh the blessings of sailing...we never get tired of it :)

In the meantime there was trouble developing in the Caribbean...tropical storm Sandy had turned into a Category 1 hurricane forecasted to directly hit Jamaica and Cuba and adversely affecting Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rain falls!

I do not know how we got spared here in Puerto Rico...we are counting our blessings!

Hurricane Sandy left death and devastation in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the DR...and then developed into a monster storm off the coast of the Eastern USA when it combined with two storm systems, creating havoc and resulting in unprecedented destruction in many states along the coast line as well as further inland!

rainbow at boca de infierno

Mother Nature is unpredictable and not to be taken for granted...our prayers continue for everybody in the after-mass of this terrible storm just as they were with everybody at its beginning and duration!

Like the rainbow forms after the storm there will be light again at the end of the tunnel...God bless!

 

Small stuff...

Whilst my captain has been working hard on the big stuff I have been busy finishing some small stuff:

British Red Ensign courtesy flag

First on the list was to finish my two British Red Ensign courtesy flags...so I did just that by sewing on the Union Jacks and putting in two spur grommets on each flag for hoisting...done :)

 

 

 

Cockpit sunshade

Next I finished making a sunshade for the cockpit...mounted on the inside. We use this only when the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. The shade is made of jersey nylon material (with lots of holes in it), which I cut to fit and then sewed a band on the bottom which attaches to the bimini tubes via snaps...for the top we just use wooden clothes pins and a line...very simple but extremely effective! The nylon material is great, because it doesn't fray when cut, so there is no need to sew the edges...best of all...I got it for a buck a yard (!) at Walmart. Of course I made another one for the front as well :)

Mosquito screen

Small stuff number three was making a mosquito screen for the salon hatch. I used Phiphertex (also called Textoline) material to which I sewed hook and loop tape...the frame on the hatch is made of wood on the inside of the cabin, so it was easy to attach the hook and loop tape with some glue and screws that were already in place there. Now I need to make some more of these screens for all the other hatches, which are currently covered with screen material that is attached with sticky gum (the one used for sticking pictures to the wall)...seriously...this works well, but is not a long term solution.

Last but not least I successfully tackled repairs to our Eisenglas (plastic) protective cockpit coverings. The panels are zipped in at the top and the sides (snapped in at the bottom) and form a complete enclosure...great for those really gusty rainy days at anchor (or at the dock)! Well...some of the side zippers were totally disintegrated from the sun and it seemed that the material had shrunk, because there was quite a gap, making it impossible to pull the sides together! What to do? My solution: I measured the gap (actually I eyeballed it, because I am not good at measuring), sewed a small sunbrella panel to fit and attached it with snaps...yap...snaps...works great :)

 

Snap on panel

We shall see how this will hold up in a gusty storm...I am pretty confident it will pass the test, keeping us dry inside :)

That's it for now...it feels good to get stuff done...now it's time to play for a little before embarking on the next project...

 

Just in case you are wondering about my method of putting in snaps...here is my very own snap tool called Pres'n'Snap...it is the greatest tool ever! Saw it in action at Marianne's (my sailmaker friend) shop and after she explained how it works I was hooked! It is expensive...but so worth it. I bought it on the internet from a company called Perfect Fit...they also sell all kinds of other useful stuff...I also got the hook and loop tape from them in big rolls for little money and the shipping was reasonable :)

Together with the Pres'n'Snap I bought all kinds of fasteners, which I store conveniently in a fishing box...of course I have a few of those fishing boxes for all the different fasteners. With this tool I also put in the spur grommets on the courtesy flags, which I talked about earlier. Everybody is behaving real careful around me these days, because I love this tool so much that I snap almost everything that is "snappable"...Just kidding :)